In a medical emergency, time is of the essence. For example, medical personnel have to quickly assemble a syringe to a needle for injecting medicant to a patient. With the recent onslaught of contagious diseases, to safeguard medical personnel, and bystanders, needle protection devices have been added to prevent unwanted needle sticks. Such incorporation of needle protection devices to the needle and syringe requires additional time.
A particular needle protection device having a needle integrated to a base, which in turn has connected thereto a pivotable housing, is disclosed in Landis U.S. Pat. No. 4,664,259. To maintain sterility for the device, in one of the embodiments, a frangible strip is provided to seal the housing to the base so that, in order to use the device, the frangible strip has to be peeled away and the housing pivoted away from the needle. This embodiment does not provide a sterile luer to which the syringe is mated. A second embodiment of the Landis invention shows the wrapping of the needle protection device in a sealed plastic pouch. Thus, a user has to tear the pouch to get to the device. As is well known, such pouches are oftentimes difficult to tear, particularly when they have been designed to be sufficiently strong to prevent accidental tearing. Accordingly, precious seconds may be wasted in removing the Landis device from its containment pouch. So, too, such pouch packages are bulky and medical personnel do not like to carry more than the minimum with them.
At the present time, another needle protection device sold in a pouch is the NEEDLE-PRO.TM. manufactured by the assignee of the present invention. From experience, it has been found that, in certain circumstances, the encasement of such needle protection device in a pouch, or other types of containment wrapping, is inconvenient.